Advice for playing the Wizards well

[Jalapenotrellis]

I was hoping to start a thread for tips to play the Wizards well. Obviously if you set the board up as shown in the quest book, the heroes can get 4 attacks off against an undefended wizard. This happened in the high mage quest for us.

If you arrange the minions in the room to protect the evil wizard, he doesn't get instantly killed.

We also have to deal with new spells from the players. Clairvoyance and Pass Through Rock let them see the room before letting the enemies activate.

Cloak of Shadows requires the evil Wizard leave his room and be picked off and surrounded easily especially if they combine it to surround the wizard with Invisibility or Veil of Mist (or Pass through rock if not used yet).

My players aren't using tempest on the Fireburst traps and aren't afraid of them even if you don't allow backtracking in those rooms. 3 attack against their normal defense isn't deadly enough to waste a spell that eliminates a turn for the evil wizards.

So my high mage got Clairvoyance and 1 shot before he could cast anything.

Necromancer got Cloak of shadowed and veil of misted surrounded so couldn't summon anything. He at least got 3 spells off.

The storm master has the weakest minions. I have a few ideas but am hoping my players aren't reading this forum. Guessing kiting is the way to go with him via earthquake. Will have to set the room up so he is initially fortified by minions so he isn't one disposed of in one turn.

[lestodante]

This is unfortunately a totally bugged quest pack. A complete re-writing is required in my opinion.

[Jalapenotrellis]

We just played the Storm Master q3.

Overall, pretty solid quest. Even if they cast Cloak of Shadows, you can Lightning bolt thru it with our interpretation of that spell (see other thread Cloak of Shadows Problem--for us, it is merely a line of sight block which affects spell casting on others or attacking across it, as it isn't an anti magic field that would make a Lightning bolt fizzle).
So that's what happened. I foolishly cast a Lightning bolt on them because they were just so perfectly lined up I couldn't resist. Then, I blocked them in their own Cloak of shadows with my minions, buying me a turn to get to the back of the room and regroup.

Unfortunately, they killed my fortifications and mostly disposed of me in two turns after that. I cast Earthquake to open a pathway out of the room to the east side of the board through the wall of the room and the blocked wall token near the falling block trap. I didn't have a turn to get into it through, and the Elf (!!!), who took spells of Protection, cast invisibility on himself to wedge himself between the rest of the heroes and hopped right into the earthquake!!! So it was heroes, storm master, invisible and invulnerable elf blocking the way in the pit. Sneaky. And we'll played.

Well then I had nowhere to go. Didn't get the blinding sleet, hurricane, thieving wind, or ice wall off. Between wall spells and Cloak of Shadows, mercenaries, invisibility/pass thru rock/veil of mist, pretty easy to cage the Wizards in. Good to see them playing well since I thought I would get a chance to kite them through the right side of the board.

I will say that I recommend giving the Wizards the ability to open doors or secret doors in this quest. Otherwise the wizard could get trapped on the right even if he successfully uses Earthquake in the main area that helps him (to the right of the center room to link the beginning and end of the quest).

[Jalapenotrellis]

Idea:
If they use Cloak of Shadows, I can cast a wall spell on one side of it to force the heroes to only face a few minions a turn so they can't just kill 3-4 minions in a turn. Argh. If only I had thought of this earlier. That would have prevented the Elf from going invisible, and walls prevent pass through rock and veil of mist.

So walls need to be used early ahead of damage spells. Period.

[Jalapenotrellis]

Orc Shaman (quest 4): If you arrange the room such that he can't be immediately killed when they open the door, I got off all 6 of his spells this time plus a few melee attacks. The heroes chose to fight outside of the room here as well, which really put the ball in my court. They were separated 3 ways. This was my most successful wizard. The teleport trap almost ensures that they fight outside the room or be man down, which really bumps this wizard up in survivability for the quest.

The Final Conflict (quest 5): Unlocked all the rooms while starting to blockade the players into the center and rooms to the left. Got the Storm Master and Necromancer to come in from the right of the bottom via the secret passage room. High Mage and Orc Shaman came in from the left (room with the table). The Orc Shaman and Necromancer are your "tank" wizards; the Storm Master and High Mage are your "DPS/attack" wizards; so just like you would pair the Barbarian and Wizard or Elf and pair the Dwarf with the other spell caster, that strategy works really well with these wizards. The players prepared Wall of Stone, and it blocked the two chaos warriors for about 5 turns (using the block on white shields only, 2 body point rule change, which makes walls work excellently).

The pit traps were crazy in this quest and helped the evil wizards significantly, as did the Earthquake spell used from outside the room into the room into the table on the left (literally pidgeoned them in a pit with enemies on both sides almost endlessly, giving them disadvantage/dice down for a while). This got rid of a lot of their potions and scrolls. Add to that, the Storm Master and High Mage both got off Thieving Wind and the Rust spell, which got rid of one of the two shields on the barbarian (randomly, I had them assign a number to each of their weapons and armor and roll dice to see which would be discarded) and his chain mail (Rust targeted this specifically). This was pretty brutal.

Used 21 of 24 evil wizard spells in the final quest, depleted considerable amount of the heroes' resources, and finally got them to use the ring of return too at the end to get out because they were out of resources and didn't want to use anymore. They chose not to get to the center room and search it. The quest was really long too. I think we finished at 4.5 hours for this one with 3 people including me. This quest is what makes the quest pack. I'd call it the hardest quest since Festral (which, honestly, I don't think was meant to be defeated but run from, as evidenced by the lore at the beginning of this quest pack).

Orc Shaman died first when trying to buff the orcs in the second room to the left. He got off 3 of his spells, not the summon spells (there were so many figures already on the board).
Storm Master got lightning bolt off diagonally on 2 of the heroes. Necromancer came in the room with the table and blocked them from leaving the left side of the room while stabbing with his 5 attack dice. The Storm Master also used Blinding Sleet to make them all lose a turn. Then came around and Earthquake tiled them behind the table. That move was the most brutal thing I could have done to them because they were stuck and at disadvantage behind endless monsters.

At the end, I used the High Mage's Escape spell to regroup him in the room with the Fireburst trap next to the Necromancer and High Mage (he was still in the room with the table at the right.
I got the heroes to exit into the rooms with the falling blocks and then the Fireburst token, which was cool because it did damage to both 3 evil wizards and 2 heroes. Since the evil wizards were out of spells, I wanted to make use of the Fireburst trap. Well, the heroes just kept rolling poorly and the wizards hit like trucks in melee.

Also, I modified the quest to have the chaos warriors be the same kind as the High Mage Quest (attack and defend with 5), the skeletons of the type from the Necromancer quest (attack and defend with 3), and the Orcs were of the kind from the Orc Shaman quest (attack 4, defend with 3, have bows that shoot for 2). This allowed you to get multiple attacks in if you had a lot of orcs in from ranged.

If you play like this, the quest is a challenge for adults, and I will say it was my favorite one to play as Morcar/Zargon. After surviving that, they deserve the rewards and character upgrades that happen in the Elf Quest pack coming up next.

[wallydubbs]

Well one of the great things about Hero Quest is Zargon's reservation to alter the board or rules of play as he sees fit. This does not disqualify you're ability to change the spells.
If the quests are too easy and the heroes are kicking a$$, you can add a few alterations to make your monsters more powerful. Now once you show the heroes the stats of you Wizards you can't just change it. But you could give them the Black Shield Block ability from Dark Company.
In my group I give certain monsters, most notably the named monsters, the ability to open doors. If the heroes cast Clairvoyance and there's a wizard in that room, he can "sense" the magic that he his being watched and can lead the attack out of that room.
In the Final Conflict quest all 4 evil wizards have this ability, to bring the fight to the heroes.

Another thing I like to do with Wizard's of Morcar /(Zargon), I find their spells to be unjustifiably weak. The spells should be just as powerful if not more powerful then an attack from your spell caster. You have an option to attack a hero with your Necromancer for 5 combat dice or resurrect a fallen orc, I think that attack is much stronger. So I like to take a few spells from the North American stock and replace some of them. The Storm Lord's lightning bolt sucks, us the one from NA Hero Quest. Necromancer has Call Skeletons or Summon Mummy? Give him Summon Undead or, dare I say it, Reanimation from the Elf Quest pack. Stuff like that should boost up the difficulty.

[Kurgan]

At first I thought this was going to be yet another thread about how to play the Wizard (hero) well, but I see what you mean...

Haven't played this pack but, I had some ideas. The bad guys seem pretty powerful but the heroes are powerful as well. I'm thinking of course of playing it with NA rules (as in Phoenix's Remake). I interpret those as "pits of darkness" tiles by the way rather than just cool looking normal pits (see Against the Ogre Horde).

https://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=5774&p=112504&hilit=chaotic+defense#p112504

Insights from the unreleased draft notes for the Wizard Quest pack might also be of interest to future sessions once revealed... (thanks LucaPaschi)

Of all the packs this one seems the most like they released it in a hurry mostly assuming people would use the assets to create their own stuff with it rather than it being a fully fleshed out adventure on its own.

I also like the idea of upgrading spells, so having a stronger version of each of the new magics.

[wallydubbs]

I think if you're playing the Wizard you need to get to know your spells and have a very strategic mind on when to use them and know the strengths and weaknesses of the other heroes.

I'm pretty good when it comes to strategy, when I went to the Dungeons of Hope charity event I originally was going to play the Elf, but when I realized how novice the rest of my group was, I knew I had to pick the Wizard. I fortunately played my cards right because sometimes spells fail, but I feel I was able to maximize all my spells. Getting 4 s from a Genie on a mini boss that took him out in 1 hit; taking out Fimirs or Mummies with Ball of Flame, casting Pass Through Rock on an Elf so he can run into an adjacent room to help the Barbarian and Dwarf in the fight so he wouldn't have to go out into the hall and waste movement; using Tempest on the big boss, using Rock Skin early on against the lower tier monsters where it would be most effective.
I made many suggestions for the Elf on when to use water spells too.

When it comes to Wizard attacks, it generally comes down to a staff with diagonal attacks, but be sure a monster can't chase you down on his next turn. Monsters are only worth attacking if the can't attack back or they're 1BP.

[j_dean80]

I’ll give a good tip. Most people who play the Wizard barely use any of the spells. They save them for the big boss battle that may or may not come. My most successful quests, in my thought, using the Wizard were quests that ended with no spells left. Don’t hold on to them.